


The MacDonald Kelly Wedding

by shouldgowork



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Basically Canon-Typical Awfulness, Because I haven't seen it, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Racism, Canon-Typical Sexism, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Compliant with Season 13, Post-Season 12, from everyone, of every kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 01:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shouldgowork/pseuds/shouldgowork
Summary: Yeah, I’m... I’m gay.It’s only now Mac’s said it that he begins to understand the burden he’s carried by not saying it all these years. The thousand ways his life has been more difficult – and that it doesn’t have to be this way.





	The MacDonald Kelly Wedding

1.

_Yeah, I’m... I’m gay_.

It’s only now Mac’s said it that he begins to understand the burden he’s carried by not saying it all these years. The thousand ways his life has been more difficult – and that it doesn’t have to be this way.

He starts dating and somehow it’s not a total disaster. It’s no great success either; Ross gets tired of his ‘karate shit' pretty fast, cause Ross clearly has no appreciation for skill or badassery. Kevin meets the rest of the gang once and never so much as replies to another text, although the night’s such an alcoholic blur that may well be Mac’s fault. Matt’s boring or, as he puts it, ‘doesn’t feel the need to drink to have a good time.’ Mac begs to differ with him on that one, and that’s the end of that. Worse, a very high percentage of the hottest beefcakes on Grindr have tried fight milk and remember his face from the ad campaign. A surprisingly large number of these threaten to either sue or beat him. But even failure is a triumph. It’s all so much better without the crippling blanket of insecurity and lies smothering him, without the constant doubt that he’s enough. He no longer ties himself in knots by doing anything and everything to ignore the blaring klaxon of wrongness he felt with women.

Mostly. There are still nights he lies awake thinking about hell. At least now there’ll be more than a few familiar faces to share the flames with.

To his surprise, the change effects the relationships he already has as well. Or at least the one with Charlie. It’s only now he sees that every frustrated _why can’t you be normal_ he ever shouted at the other man, every rage-fuelled attempt to make him see what’s wrong with his way of thinking about the world were about himself. That’s not to say the guy doesn’t make terrible or at least strange choices. It’s just that maybe that’s ok.

This realisation hit him one afternoon when he found Charlie trying to burrow into a hole in the wall of the bar, hunched and frantic and an undeniably strange sight to all but their most hardened regular patrons. He squatted down next to Charlie’s wriggling back half as discreetly as possible.

'Hey, what are you doing in there bro?' He whispered.

'Huffing a glue trap.’ Charlie shouted back, voice thick and troublingly sinusy, as if he thought Mac was on the other side of the room. ‘I had a shitty morning and I figure why let the rats live it up without me?'

Though most people in the bar were ignoring them both with the cultivated disinterest of a South Philly native, a couple of (very lost) out of towners looked both disgusted and concerned. They were judging Charlie; judging Mac by association. On top of that, they were now all well aware of the rat problem at Paddy’s. _What’s wrong with you_ or _why couldn’t you just use a bag in the office and not do this in front of people_ both danced on the tip of his tongue. But as he looked at their squinty, judgemental faces he realised he didn’t really care. He had nothing to prove to these people, it didn’t matter what they thought. And if any of them couldn’t already work out that the bar was crawling with vermin, that’s on them.

'Ok well, don’t pass out, the ventilation in there’s shitty.’ He replied instead. The scrabbling stopped momentarily, although whether Charlie was considering this line of argument or merely surprised at the mild reply wasn’t clear. The next time he did something dumb or just plain weird, Mac snapped at him as usual and called him a moron. He did it again the time after that.

Apparently, realisations that hit you like a bolt out of the blue don’t automatically stick around. But little by little the balance tips.

It’s not long after this revelation that Dennis just goes and moves to North Dakota, leaving Mac sad and lonely and none too willing to examine why he feels either of these things quite so much. He flies back for a short trip around Christmas, but otherwise he’s gone and everything’s a little bit worse than before. Frank’s slide into alcoholism and insanity seems to be speeding up, and Charlie’s attempts to get him to see a doctor usually end up with a gun or two pointed in his face. Even Dee manages to become more boring than normal, having somehow gotten herself a man she spends most of her time with and won’t let any of them meet.

This time it was the loneliness, rather than a sudden need for a windfall of cash, or a deal they accidentally made with a witch or something crazy like that, that drove Mac and Charlie to try to sell the Assblaster at the next merch convention that came to Philly.

Charlie took a bit of convincing that the idea had legs, a little insulting from the man who invented something as ridiculous as the kitten mitten, but eventually he gave in. Writing the pitch and filming the video to go with it consumed their free time. They spent two whole days doing takes of Mac using it while saying cool stuff, and by the end of it he couldn’t walk properly due to muscle strain. There was no time in the schedule to rest them though, and he spent the last thirty seconds of the ad lurching around and hunched over with his thumbs up, looking far too much like Frank for his liking. Somehow, despite the awesomeness of the Assblaster and the catchy jingle they wrote, they got laughed off the stage during their demo and quickly escorted from the venue.

'I thought we had a great product there, man.’ Charlie whined, brow furrowed with confused frustration once they’d wrestled the thing back to Mac’s apartment. Mac remembered on some level that it was his idea alone, that it was he who lovingly carved the small fist into the dildo on the prototype and not Charlie, but his formerly constant need to scream his value until someone listened, to make sure his share of the credit was properly recognised, had died down enough for him to simply nod.

'As good as those dick towels bro.’

'These idiots are just scared of progress. I mean, your thighs look _crazy_ right now. It was too much for them to handle.’ Charlie said.

‘Oh, you think so?’

Charlie’s fervent confirmation almost made him forget the screaming agony his leg muscles had turned into.

While the scheme ended badly, it didn’t end in a fight that lasts days, adding to a pile of simmering resentments that hold the gang together like corrosive glue. Instead the two of them spent the evening watching wrestling on Charlie's taped-together joke of a TV, commenting on what a fitness regime including the Assblaster could have added to their performances.

It’s nice to keep the fighting external for once, Mac thought to himself as he hobbled back to his apartment that night. It’s also nice that at least _one_ person understood the genius of his invention. Charlie’s always been good like that though. They just click.

 

2.

Spring turns into a hot, airless summer that makes them all snappish. Except Dee, whose man has air conditioning at his place and whose endless crowing about it at least serves the purpose of making a common enemy for the rest of them. The heat drives everyone crazier than normal. Frank and his weird, ancient gang reunite at a funeral and get in a turf war with an equally weird group claiming to be the Belgian mafia, settled with an acapella sing off at the bar. For a wild couple of weeks, the waitress has Charlie convinced she’s pregnant, by the end of which he has no cash and nearly no apartment. Frank and Dee spend the time trying to trick her into admitting the lie with no success. Mac cuts through their bullshit by simply holding her out of Charlie’s window and threatening to drop her unless she tells the truth. His immense arm strength fails him for once and he drops her anyway, but not before she’d confessed. After that there’s some nonsense with a live bull in the bar and so on. Mac keeps Dennis updated but his replies thin out over time until they’re barely more than a word.  

There’s good times too, though, this years health inspection for one. It’s a wild ride involving a catastrophically early inspector, a bag of heroin the entire gang swears blind doesn’t belong to them, and a passed out whore of Frank’s acquaintance. As he’s helping Dee carry her limp, snoring body to the basement, stepping over Frank’s black-painted form and juggling a bowl of brown sugar they all hope the inspector won’t try, he can appreciate the genius within Charlie’s madness. The level of planning, dedication and hard work he puts into this, his ability to just steamroll through any surprise. As usual, he pulls it off and gets the top grade, and Mac can’t understand how he hasn’t noticed these qualities before. And slowly but surely, his mind continues to adjust, and the roaring, erosive tide of doubt and hatred recedes a little every day. His dad’s still somewhere that isn’t here, his mom’s still frustratingly unable to express the deep love he knows she has for him. He’s still a minority stakeholder in a failing bar with fewer friends than priors, however unjust they are. But living truthfully, somehow every single one of these is easier to handle. He realises this the first time he goes a whole day without shouting at anyone. The next day he has a fight with Dee, the day after with Frank and Charlie. But little by little, peace starts to creep in.

 

3.

It was the longest day of the year, the hottest too by coincidence, when he noticed that Charlie had spent the entire morning sat in a booth at the bar surrounded by mountains of loose and crumpled papers and colouring pencils.

'I’m writing another musical.’ He explained, not looking away from the page he was frantically drawing stars and guns on.

'About the Nightman again?' Mac asked, excited about revisiting the role with mesh tank tops and glitter now in play. Charlie shook his head with a strangely bitter smile.

'Nope. Thought I’d take Lethal Weapon 7 in a new direction.’

Mac immediately sat next to him and they spent the rest of the day fleshing it out and aggressively ignoring customers. Without Dennis there, Mac was forced to take on the dual role of Riggs and Murtaugh. Charlie dutifully, if doubtfully, made his half and half costume while grumbling about good taste.

‘You sure about this dude? It hasn’t always gone down well before.’ Charlie asked Mac’s reflection in the makeup mirror on opening night, making him jog his hand and ruin the perfect line of brown paint down the centre of his face.

‘Yes. God, it’ll be even more confusing if _I don’t_ do this in the circumstances.’ He replied, gesturing wildly with his makeup brush down at his half suit-half denim jacket attire.

‘If you’re sure, man.’

He _was_ sure, until the moment he stepped out from behind the curtain to be greeted by a wall of awkward laughter. His excellent fighting instincts kicked in at just the worst time and he began to karate chop his way to his mark to calm his nerves; which only makes the laughing louder.

Before he knew it, Charlie was pulling him off of the worst offender in the front row. Mac was vaguely aware that he was screaming about how he won a point in a real karate bout once so the guy should be scared, and then the theatre manager stepped in and cancelled the whole thing. In the end, no one saw their masterpiece except Dee and a couple of regulars in the bar, none of whom even pretended to give a single fuck about it all.

Mac couldn’t bring himself to apologise for defending his honour at the theatre, but he sat through the week long silent treatment Charlie gives him for apparently ruining the musical until it was forgotten with a new scheme. Some cat gave birth one night in the bar to a litter that Charlie desperately wanted to raise to ‘adulthood’ as he put it, seeming to envision himself supported in his old age by this new dynasty.

‘ _They can bring me crabs fresh from the river every day!’_ He shrieked. Mac said nothing and bit back a dozen different withering replies.

Frank meanwhile just said their stray whore of a mother must’ve found herself a Bengal, some sort of fancy cat that idiots would drop a grand for, to get knocked up by. Whether or not that was as crazy as Mac thought, half the litter looked pedigree, and it would almost have been a crime _not_ to pass them off as the real deal. The scheme to falsify their papers ended as well as their schemes always do, but at least Charlie got to keep the kittens. Until they wandered off a few weeks later, never to be seen again and leaving their adoptive father inconsolable.

‘Maybe they’ll find Poppins on the road and have cool animal hobo adventures.’ Mac said, only half joking. Even now, even though the dog had been wandering for a couple of years, he knew it was still out there somewhere. Charlie stopped crying when he suggested this, and Mac felt stupidly proud for making him feel better. Even so, Charlie seemed unusually down for the next few days, until Mac found him a sorry sight one evening. He was barely on his bar stool, and it was probably only sheer muscle memory from being sat like this at the bar a thousand times before that was keeping him off the floor. The numerous empty beer bottles scattered around him explained his situation well enough.

'Hey man, I know we don’t do this anymore but I gotta _talk_ to someone.' He slurred without moving his head from the bar top. Mac wondered if it was permanently glued there by years of rendered down beer residue.

It’s true, Mac realised. It had been so long since they just sat and _really_ talked about something that wasn’t a scheme or a musical or something on tv, like they used to when they were younger. Between his own repression and guilt, and Charlie’s increasingly creepy obsession with the waitress, it’d grown hard to find anything to talk about that didn’t cause a fight. He felt a stab of regret, whether it was the onset of middle age making him soft or some other reason, he wasn’t sure.

‘Is this still about those cats?’

'The waitress.’ Charlie said softly and something in Mac’s chest clenched angrily.

‘She hasn’t convinced you she’s pregnant again has she?'

The noise Charlie made suggested not.

'She’s a fucking bitch.’

'Yep.’ Mac said, not sure what new event, if any, has prompted this.

'No but like, _really_. Not just lately.’

'That’s what I was telling you for years.’ Dee squawked down the bar.

‘Shut up.’ They chorused. Mac knew he should probably be nicer to her too, but he can only change so much at a time and she was far down the list of priorities.

'I don’t know why I was so obsessed with her.’

'None of us did dude.’ he replied.

‘I thought she’d…’ Charlie began, but all he could muster to finish his thought was a wild gesture of his hands. The years of glue, paint and cat food had taken their toll on his mind after all. Mac frequently had to interpret the finer points of Charlie’s inner thoughts and gestures this way.

‘You thought she’d make you better?’

Charlie shrugged. ‘Well she was perfect, so I thought if I was with her _I’d_ be perfect too.’ He started to fidget nervously, fumbling with the nearest bottle unsteadily.

An unpleasant feeling stole over Mac as he was reminded of the years of dating women, the years of it being too much but not enough, the rage at the girls who clearly weren’t good enough, weren’t hot enough or fun enough, or he’d _feel something_. The years of wasted time thinking he just needed to find the right one who didn’t leave him so cold inside. He dug his nails into his palm to stop the cycle of thoughts. It’s not helpful to dwell on it, he’s been told. Or as Matt had put it, he might be a late bloomer but at least he reached the sun eventually. Mac wasn’t sure if that’s how plants work but it was a nice enough thing that he repeats it to himself when he starts spiralling like this.

‘But I’m not… I’m just- _women._ Dating. They’re…’ Charlie began, blowing a raspberry to make his point. Again, Mac wondered what a scan of Charlie’s brain would look like, or how much would be left. ‘It’s just like, what’s the point. You know?’

Charlie’s definitely not gay. But it’s 2018 and Mac’s been to a pride event now, so he knows that that doesn’t mean Charlie’s not… something. He’s never really considered it before, and now might be a good time to ask, when he’s drunk past the point of being able to conceal anything.

It was a moot point though as Charlie had finally lost the battle with gravity and only Mac’s cat-like reflexes and a sweet dive bomb saved him from a concussion or worse.

‘Hey Dee, did you see that?’ He shouted up from the floor.

‘Nope!’

She really was useless.

Mac planned to bring it up the next day but Bill Ponderosa half-heartedly tried to rob them at gun point and by the time they were over that little distraction, the moment had passed.

The days finally begin to cool. They hatch their schemes, they keep working at the bar. The waitress seems to recede further and further from Charlie’s mind. Dennis’ contact with the rest of the gang dwindles to baby photos. Dee moves in with her mystery man. Mac can’t help but feel how much they’ve changed in the last year and while it’s exciting, it’s scary too, and sometimes he feels like he’s plummeting. Some things get better, though. Mac and Charlie resume their weekly movie nights at Mac’s place, ploughing through Hulk Hogan’s and then Bill Goldberg’s filmographies and cans of beer at a breakneck pace, drinking and laughing and talking about all the ways they could make the movies better. No fights, no schemes. Just evenings that pass in the blink of an eye and make him feel young again.

 

4.

One cloudy afternoon in the dead of winter threatened to destroy it all, when Charlie’s mom got cancer for real. With understandable suspicion, Charlie insisted on going with their moms to the doctor, who pointed out the lump, a solid and ugly mass clear as day on the scans. He was talking about early catching and encouraging signs and mastectomies when Charlie freaked out and bolted from the room crying. Mac stayed with Mrs Kelly and his mom for the rest of the appointment and promised them he’d go after Charlie.

He found him slumped by the bridge some time later, mercifully without any of his weird bridge friends or cats in attendance, a paper bag resting on his chest and a spray paint can at his side. Mac slapped him awake and offered him some pain killers.

‘I’m really sorry bro. But it’s looking almost as good as it could in the circumstances. There’s loads they can do to help her. She can beat this.’ He said, sounding more confident than he felt. After all, Mrs Kelly was still uninsured but there didn’t seem much point in bringing it up right now. He held out his hand to help Charlie up, but Charlie merely looked up at him squinting from both the light over Mac’s shoulder and the paint fumes, staring until its nearly uncomfortable.

‘What is it?’ Mac finally asked.

‘You know you’re the Dayman right?’

Mac stared at him blankly, not sure where this was come from. ‘In your musical? I didn’t play him, that was Dennis. I think you should lay off the bag for a bit.’ He said, trying gently to wrestle the paper bag from Charlie’s clutching, paint-stained fingers.

‘No, no _no_.’ Charlie said, keeping a tight hold on it. ‘I mean when I wrote it.’ Another pause, and this time Charlie looked down at the disgusting sidewalk he was sitting on. ‘That’s how I see you.’

‘You see me being pimped out by a troll and ass raped?’

Charlie shrieked in annoyance, tugged the bag out of Mac’s grasp and ran off, soon lost in the driving sleet and darkness.  

Mac was certain, as he felt the guilt twisting through him, that he’d misremembered something about the musical but wasn’t as if he’d held onto his script after all these years. Artemis managed to send him photos of the whole thing within the hour after a not so subtle hint from him that they might be planning another show, with a message attached.

_Sign me up, I’d be a way better princess than Dee. Btw tell Frank to get over here, the tit tape’s not holding the spam on any more._

He stared blankly at the second half of the message for a few nauseous seconds before forwarding it without comment to Frank. He might be traumatised but he’d gotten what he needed and started scrolling and reading as fast as he can.

He was still confused until he came to the last song and words began to jump out at him. _Fighter. Champion. Master of Karate and Friendship._

The guilt writhed even worse than ever.

He started to head to the bar, almost running, until Frank texted him back.

_Tell her I just got done frying the cheese and I’m about to leave. Also Charlie’s in the crevice and wont stop crying LOL._

_Hard pass_ he typed, coming to a skidding halt and changing direction.

As ever, Charlie’s door was unlocked and he didn’t even make a sign that he was aware someone had entered his home. He just kept crying into the back of the sofa bed. Mac tried to find the least disgusting bit of it to perch on, not sure what to do with his hands or his voice in this situation. Charlie sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve, taking a deep breath.

 ‘Remember the day they took you dad?’ He asked, voice trembling.

‘We were in my room. You’d stayed over.’ Mac replied. He remembered every detail even now. He was pretty sure he always would. It’d been nearly ten in the morning but Charlie was still dead to the world as he always was when he stayed the night. It was always as if he hadn’t slept in days but whatever it was keeping the boy awake at home, Mac had never pried into. He’d been idly flipping between reading a men’s fitness magazine he’d stolen and watching the peaceful, albeit drooling and snoring, form of his friend, when there’d been a huge bang at the door. No, not _at_ the door, it _was_ the door. He’d run to the top of the stairs expecting to see gangbangers or aliens or ninjas. Instead he saw blue shirts and guns and his blood had run cold.

He liked to think that at this point he’d done a cool flip down the stairs, tripped up the cops streaming through the door and given his dad time to get away. In reality he’d watched silently as they’d hauled the man out towards the door, watched as his father had screamed and shouted and grabbed desperately at every solid thing in reach like he was drowning. For just a second, they’d been looking directly at one another and he’d seen nothing but fear in his father’s eyes. Mac started crying before he’d even been hauled out of the house, sitting on the top step, watching the doorway, and then watching his mother silently watch it too as she took slow drags on her cigarette. She’d looked up at him as she turned to slope back to her tv, and she’d nodded at him, the only comfort she was either able or willing to offer. Like someone she’d met a couple of times. Like she’d greet the guy at the shitty little place she bought her cigarettes.

His mom was nodding at him like a cashier and their front door lay in splinters in the hallway. He suddenly felt so open, so exposed, like no one in the world would give a single fuck if he walked out and down the street and was never seen again. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe, even with the huge gasps of air he was taking in between sobs, and he felt like he might float off into space, until a warm little hand gripped his shoulder. He grabbed onto it and held tightly like he’d been thrown a line. The other hand landed on his other shoulder before awkwardly grabbing around him for a hug, not loosening or letting go until his crying had stopped.

‘They’ve made a mistake. My dad’s not- he’s innocent.’ He’d finally started babbling. ‘Or maybe he’s a witness? Maybe he saw some crazy shit go down in Chinatown and this is for his own safety.’

‘Maybe.’ Charlie had replied and even though Mac could tell he didn’t mean it, he was grateful.

'I didn’t protect him.’ He said.

‘There was nothing you could do.’

‘I didn’t even _try_.’

 He suddenly heard a cheer from the tv downstairs and remembered there’d been a game on today, and they’d been planning to head down there to try to sneak in somehow. A plan he’d now messed up. He was sure Charlie had heard it too but the plan wasn’t mentioned again. They’d spent the rest of the day in Mac’s room practicing wrestling moves like everything was normal. Charlie had even let Mac try to break a chair over his back. They’d stolen money from his dad’s stash (and really, looking back on it, he should have realised that that wasn’t a normal thing to have hidden under a floorboard), and bought pizza and pretended to be He Man and Skeletor, and for just one last day Charlie had helped him pretend like the world wasn’t ending.

Mac finally understood, and practically dragged Charlie out of the crevice and into a bone crushing hug. A hug that said _this is shit but I got you._ Just like the hug at the top of his stairs three decades ago. Because even though they’ve had their ups and downs since then, that hadn’t changed. He was still Charlie’s Dayman, and Charlie was still the only person who’s ever demonstrably given a shit about him. He held on firmly until Charlie extricated himself and sat next to him looking slumped and deflated but at least calmer.

‘Thanks.’

‘Do you want to go buy some cheese and throw rocks at trains?’ Mac asked. Tomorrow would be terrible, but at least tonight he could repay the favour.

Charlie shook his head. ‘Could we play Nightcrawlers?’

‘Of course.’

Despite the terrible situation, he was excited to finally learn about the mysterious game. It turned out to have only one move, which was close enough to dry humping that Mac was genuinely disturbed that Charlie plays this with a man who might well be his father. He added it to the pile of Charlie things that he shouldn’t question too hard.

He stayed the night and woke up to the nostalgic sight of his friend well and truly passed out. He allowed himself to wallow in it for a few minutes before he knew he had to wake him up and drag him back to reality, where they needed to do a stock check and re-tape the sides of the glory hole before the bar opened. Cricket’s clients had been complaining about splinters and refusing to pay him the full amount. Let it not be said the gang was not generous to their friends.

Just then Frank burst in to see Mac scuttling away from the sleeping man he had definitely just been watching and let out a triumphant noise like he just caught a thief in the act.

'So are you both f- both _homosexuals_ now or are you just a pervert?'

Mac flapped his hands uselessly as Charlie woke up.

'Oh hey man what’s up?' He asked blearily as he took Frank’s presence in.

'He was watching you sleep.’ Frank shrieked, pointing accusingly at Mac.

Mac started to make loud and angry denials but Charlie just shrugged. 'I don’t mind.’

Mac didn’t have much time to consider this before Frank steamrolled on with the conversation.

'So what’s this I hear about your mom and the second big C she’s had in her life?' Frank continued, as Mac and Charlie merely looked at each other in confusion.

'The first was my cock.’ He shouted, laughing like a gremlin and gyrating at them. He kept talking over their outraged replies. 'Sorry Charlie, I thought of that one last night and I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll help you fundraise.’

After checking in with Mrs Kelly, they spent the entire day workshopping ideas at the bar. A beef and beer was off the table with everyone worried it might jog collective neighbourhood memories of the last one. Mac offered to prostitute himself but for some reason the others didn’t think it was a goer. Charlie suggested he start collecting the rats he bashes to death in the bar and sell their meat in fancy pies, something he’d been suggesting way too often since Mac unfortunately suggested they watch Sweeney Todd a few weeks before.

Frank tried to start a vote on kidnapping Dee and selling one of her kidneys until she screeched down the bar at them.

'I'm right here you bunch of _assholes_. Why don’t you harvest your own gross medical crops first and sell plasma?'

Charlie was out the door the second Dee explained what plasma is, why people want it and how much you can get for it. He returned a few hours later staggering and deathly pale but clutching five hundred dollars and practically collapsed onto Frank, who started shovelling sugar and beer down his throat. Mac ignored Dee squawking about something or other and headed down to the clinic himself, where he spent the next hour waiting to be told he wasn’t eligible to donate.

'We can’t accept men with your lifestyle.’ The middle-aged woman on the desk had simpered  passive aggressively through pursed and over-glossed lips.

Just like that he was back in the school yard, back in a priest’s confessional, back in every place he ever felt fear and shame. He tried to walk out with his head held high but his red rimmed eyes weren’t really helping.

He came back and settled quietly into the booth where Charlie was still being ministered to. Clearly, he’d been missing out on common knowledge as Frank and Dee both clearly knew. They did the decent thing and ignored him until he’d recovered enough to suggest they spend the money Charlie made on scratch cards. Surely with that many they’d win big. Frank, though vetoed that, and another round of squabbling began. Far too soon day turned to night, and before long it was time to lock up.

‘I’m going to Artie’s tonight. Don’t wait up.’ Frank grizzled, grabbing two handfuls of limes and stuffing them into the pockets of his jacket. Mac and Dee exchanged a look, both hoping fervently that they were just for frozen margaritas. Charlie moaned weakly from his spot in the booth and offered a slightly shaky thumbs up in response. Dee left only minutes after Frank, ushered outside by a car horn that made her smile secretively down at the floor, as if she was worried someone would see her expression and steal it off her face. How she ended up this closed off, Mac could never understand.

He was left in the dark quiet of the bar, the air unpleasantly sweet and thick with the smell of beer and smoke, punctuated only by the quiet and insane murmurings from the corner. He thought of lip gloss and damnation and felt his hands begin to shake, felt himself spiralling.

_God loves me_ he mouthed to himself, just like his new pastor had told him to when this happened. _God makes no mistakes_ he continued, but it felt like a hollow lie. _God-_

‘Anyone still there?’

‘Yeah Charlie. Just closing up and then I’ll take you home.’

Charlie grunted in what seemed to be thanks, but it was Mac who was grateful for the distraction from his thoughts. He wiped a wet rag across a few glasses and dumped some of the trash in the alley, enough that someone would notice he’d made an effort the next day.

There was nothing for it but to pick Charlie up and carry him out despite his protests and weak flails, gingerly trying not to knock his head or feet against the door frame on his way out into the street. He felt like he was carrying a messy bride over a threshold and Charlie seemed to have had the same thought.

‘You still got that wedding dress you bought a few years back?’ He slurred through giggles, rehearsing bits and pieces of wedding vows before finally, mercifully, passing out. This turned out to be as much a curse as a blessing; the trip back to Charlie’s apartment was quiet and fast, but by the time they got there Mac’s front was literally covered in drool. He dropped the dead (but entirely manageable, given his own bulk) weight of his friend onto his bed and half-heartedly threw the slightly crusty blanket over him.

He was tired and wet, and Charlie still looked a bit like he was going to die. With a heavy sigh, Mac poked around for anything vaguely blanket-shaped with less food and alcohol smeared on it, and settled in, vowing to stay awake to check on the other man.

He was awoken by late morning sun streaming into his eyes, and the smell of something burning on the hot plate. He turned his head to see Charlie standing at the counter top, whistling away and looking somehow completely fine. Then again, after all the abuse he put his body through, removing the majority of his plasma probably wasn’t a big deal.

Mac lay still and took in his surroundings. The sofa bed beneath him was more spring than fabric, the pillow next to him appeared to be slippery with accumulated hair grease. The room smelled of mould and faint undertones of stray cat, and he was pretty sure he could literally hear rats in the walls. Somehow, what he felt wasn’t revulsion but contentment.

Though Dennis had long since moved away he’d kept up his rent at the apartment, with some vague explanations of needing to keep some things ‘compartmentalised’. Mac assumed it was to house his vast collection of sex tapes, although he’d seen Dennis scrubbing at his wall with bleach using a toothbrush before he left, so perhaps it wasn’t just that. Either way, the place was empty and cold. Here there was life, if perhaps too much of it. Here there was warmth and relaxation. He indulged in simply watching his friend work, listening to the scattered strings of song lyrics he worked his way through, and let himself feel happy. Finally, Charlie seemed to sense himself being watched and looked over, face breaking out into a smile.

‘Thanks for getting me home last night, it’s all a bit of a blur after the first few bags of blood came out.’

‘No problem.’

‘We should head over to my mom’s now you’re awake.’ He continued, slightly subdued.

‘Oh, right. Yeah.’ Mac replied. He’d forgotten, for a moment, the reason they were doing any of this.

They were over there within the hour, Charlie proudly throwing down the money he’d made onto the coffee table.

‘We got this. To go towards your treatment.’ He said, beaming, and Mac’s ears rang with the use of we. Mrs Kelly grabbed him for a bone crushing hug, and even Mac’s own mom snorted at them in her own small gesture of respect.

‘We’ll get more. As much as we need to.’

‘What would I do without my Charlie?’ Mrs Kelly squealed at Mac.

‘I don’t know.’

 

5.

Charlie keeps selling plasma. Frank gives up one whore a week and hands Charlie the cash he saves, although his tastes run cheap and his donations are small. Dee even contributes the odd take from her double drops while lying and saying she’s not. Mac tries his hand a couple of times at cage dancing in the clubs but comes away with only a few dollars and a severely bruised ego. He goes to a fight club and comes away with such a bad concussion he can’t remember it, having somehow managed to earn precisely one dollar. Still, they claw cash together week by week. Mac watches Charlie’s hope grow as the biscuit tin Mrs Kelly uses for a bank gets a little heavier.

Life goes on despite the diagnosis and the fundraising. Mac finally breaks down to pleading and spends a couple of evenings with Charlie and his weird sewer friends, which isn’t quite as gross as he expected. Their movie nights continue and more often than not end the next morning, when they wake up slumped together in front of static and white noise. A couple of times they actually make it into a bed like functional adults. Mac wakes up to Charlie burrowing into his side or spooning him and puts off moving as long as he can, revelling in a warmth that’s more than just physical.

A few weeks into it all, Mac went home to find Dennis sitting on the sofa stiffly and staring straight ahead of him. He flushed so suddenly that he thanked God he’d grown his beard, and his heart leapt into his mouth, but dropped way back down again a moment later. He felt something complicated and messy and somehow a little guilty at the sight of the other man.

‘Oh hey, didn’t know you were dropping by.’ He said with false lightness, hoping and dreading in equal measures that if he poked his head round Dennis’ padlocked door he’d find boxes and cases ready to move back in.

‘Spur of the moment, for a day only. Got a couple of things I have to do here.’ He replied, still staring fixedly.

Mac sidled into the apartment as if it wasn’t his own, on edge in a way he hadn’t felt in months.

‘How’s….’

He never learned the woman’s name or the kid’s either. He gestured vaguely instead.

‘Irritating. Loud. But very well.’

He looked miserable, or at least angry, but in other ways living in the middle of bumfuck nowhere suited him. Mac couldn’t help but notice the tan and subtle highlights. Whatshername clearly lived an outdoorsy life.

‘Oh, well that’s good.’

‘I guess not much has changed around here in the last few months.’ Dennis said, finally looking at his roommate.

It was only now that Mac realised how long it’d been since he even thought to send him an update. ‘Charlie’s mom has cancer for real this time and Cricket had an ear bitten off, but that’s a long story.’

‘Right.’ Dennis said, not even pretending to care about any of it, his nose wrinkling almost imperceptibly with a contemptuous disgust that made Mac feel suddenly very aware of the mess in the apartment and the grease stains on his t-shirt.

‘Well, I’m gonna turn in, so…’ He said, walking awkwardly backwards into his room and shutting the door. He found himself, of all things, yearning for the easy, chaotic contentment of Charlie’s pig sty of an apartment and fell asleep thinking of it.

The next morning Frank and Charlie seemed genuinely excited when Mac walks into the bar with Dennis in tow. Dee completely ignored her brother, a thing that might normally interest Mac, but today it was his own reaction that had him bothered. He joined in with the shouting and chanting Frank and Charlie started in Dennis’ honour but inwardly he couldn’t think of anything but that wrinkled nose or the genuine disinterest about Mrs Kelly. He pushed it down and kept chanting.

They sat and drank the rest of the morning away, hearing bits and pieces about North Dakota, about the kid, about their respectable neighbours and the job, or _career_ as he takes the trouble to emphasise, Dennis had found there. ‘And the area has its upsides. Good hunting. We’re isolated where we are, and there’s loads of very private outhouses on the property.’

Something in his expression made them all pause, but Dennis moved smoothly on to a comparison of the rats in both places that engrossed Charlie and Frank until it was mostly forgotten.

‘And what about you guys? What’ve you been up to?’ Dennis finally asked.

‘Oh man you should have _been_ here, Mac and me made Lethal Weapon 7 a while back. And we’ve started making a zombie film. Unfortunately, right now it’s just loads of takes of Dee all put in the same background, but we’re looking at crowdfunding to make it better. Oh, and last week we found this _huge_ egg in the trash behind the Korean place. We took it to an ornithologist who seemed pretty cool, but he turned out to be a chicken rapist.’ Charlie expelled in one long, excited stream of words, not pausing for breath until he looked like he might pass out.

‘Although he did manage to tell us it was a goose egg before they took him away.’ Frank added.

‘It was _awesome,_ I didn’t know geese were a real thing. Apparently, they’re not actually golden, though.’ Charlie continued, having gulped down the bare minimum to keep breathing.

Mac chuckled at the memory of that particular incident and turned to Dennis, waiting for him to start calling Charlie a moron in that friendly, affectionate way he always does, but instead the strange glint was back in his eye as he looked between Charlie and Mac.

‘Oh, well, Mac and _I_ talked about making a zombie film all the time. We even had a storyboard at one point although I don’t know where it went. Speaking of which, I heard about this amazing new Korean zombie flick, want to watch it tonight?’ He asked, angling his body to make it clear he was only asking Mac.  

For just a moment Mac imagined them sat together on their small couch, beers flowing, the space between them growing smaller, and shivered. But then he saw Charlie frowning at the floor, all the joy from his goose story gone. Dennis, he could see, was looking too. And Dennis was smirking. Mac looked into Dennis’ eyes and for the first time really appreciated how cold they were.

‘Uh, yeah sure.’ Mac replied in a confused daze, about to add that they should all see it together.

‘Great.’ Dennis said, cutting him off, before jumping into another discussion. Charlie kept his eyes fixed downwards and said almost nothing for the rest of the day.

Mac and Dennis ended up spending the evening on their couch, beer flowing and arms, by necessity, touching. It was nothing but uncomfortable. Mac barely registered the grade A violence on screen as he thought about Dennis’ cruel smirk and Charlie’s face. When he turned the tv off he saw in the dark reflection of the screen that Dennis was watching him and turned to find himself looking straight into the man’s dead, searching eyes.

Of all things, it reminded him of a nature documentary he and Charlie had watched a few nights back. When a lion spots you, stand still. Don’t run. That’s what the presenter had said. He sat still, almost holding his breath, until Dennis’ expression turned to irritation and he got up. Whatever test he’d just sat, he’d failed. It felt like a lucky escape.

He turned in soon after and stayed in bed until he heard Dennis leave the next morning, wondering what the fuck was happening to the gang.

‘You’re late. There’s stuff to do.’ Charlie said brusquely when he finally walked through the door, though he wasn’t exactly rushed off his feet with customers.

‘Sorry, Dennis was leaving.’ He explained, not quite a lie. Charlie’s face became more closed off than ever, and guilt roiled in Mac’s stomach. He wasn’t even sure why he felt bad. After all, Charlie couldn’t possibly be this pissed off about missing a movie night. It wasn’t as if they’d always been a trio thing before Dennis had left. And even if he were, it wasn’t like Mac had been the one to leave him out. He was about to open his mouth to say just that, but Charlie stopped bustling and headed swiftly for the front door.

‘Well don’t take your jacket off. Our mom’s want us round at the house as soon as possible for some reason.’

The bus ride over there was tensely silent, but Mrs Kelly opened the door looking like she’d just won the lottery.

‘Oh, boys, we have _great_ news.’ She said, as soon as they were all sat around the kitchen table together.

‘Did god take your cancer away?’ Mac half shrieked. He’d been asking his pastor to put in a good word every day.

‘No. But Frank thought of a solution, he checked with a lawyer and, well, it’s all gonna be ok.’

‘Oh my god, mom, that’s fantastic news. What is it?’ Charlie asked.

She held a hand out by way of answer and displayed the meanest, smallest brass band around her finger topped with what looks like a small speck of glass.

‘Are you and Frank getting married? Oh shit, does this mean I should stop sleeping with him?’ Charlie wailed, running his hand through his hair at the dilemma.

Mac, though was two steps ahead, glancing from Mrs Kelly, to his mom, and to the incredibly cheap ring.

‘Oh. Oh, no.’ He whispered.

His mother grunted in reply, blowing smoke in his direction.

‘No I will _not_ settle down, mom!’ Mac shouted, standing up and beginning to pace.

‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re getting hitched.’ Mac’s mom rasped, resting a possessive hand on Mrs Kelly’s forearm. ‘Adding her to my health insurance.’

‘She was the manager at Jiffy Lube after all. You get certain benefits when you climb that high up the corporate ladder.’ Mrs Kelly said, flashing her fiancée a grateful smile. ‘And I’m getting a small mortgage to cover the deductibles and copays.’

‘Thanks so much.’ Charlie replied, trying and failing to hug Mrs Mac and getting a lit cigarette to the arm for his troubles.

‘But… but you two aren’t even lesbians!’ Mac hissed with genuine outrage.

‘Oh, so now you’re defending the sanctity of gay marriage? I thought that was the thing leading to armageddon, make your goddamn _mind_ up!’ Charlie shrieked. Mac opened his mouth to shout back but Charlie looked so sad he stopped in his tracks.

‘Come on this is my mom’s _life_ we’re talking about.’

‘Also, we had threesomes with Luther when he was staying here. After some of what we got up to, let’s just say I think we sort of count.’ Mrs Kelly adds.

‘Is this true, mom?’ Mac asked as Charlie gagged audibly and hid his head in his hands.

A shrug of confirmation to her son, and a wink at Mrs Kelly, are more than enough answer.

‘Well, that changes things. You two have my blessing.’

He could have sworn he heard his mom whisper that she didn’t need it but that couldn’t possibly be correct.

‘Oh hey, does that mean I can have my plasma money back?’

Mac’s mom snorted, and Charlie looks to Mac for a translation.

‘She’s saying that the father of the bride pays for a wedding, she’s clearly the more masc one of the two, making your mom the bride, and since her father’s dead, you’re paying.’

Charlie looked mournfully at the money jar but nodded in agreement.

‘Well, the ceremony’s gonna be in the back yard next weekend so you two had better run along and leave us to it. We’ve got a lot to plan.’

For just a second as they were leaving, Charlie turned to him and opened his mouth to say something, shoulders relaxed and face plastered with a smile, before he remembered he wasn’t speaking to him, and just began to stalk angrily back to the bus stop. The journey back to Paddy’s was even quieter than the journey out, as Mac wondered why exactly he was so angry, even as the vague guilt gnawed away at him.

 

6.

The days passed quickly. Charlie only spoke to Mac to help alter one of his suits to fit his mom for the wedding. He spent all his free time trying to train some of the bar rats to act as the ringbearer.

‘I could make them a little wagon to pull, we could put the ring in that?’ Mac offered one afternoon after seeing a rat tumble off the bar top for the fourth time in ten minutes.

‘You saying I can’t train my rats? You think I’m too stupid?’ Charlie asked, voice low and sporting an expression on his face that made Mac want to cover his throat protectively.

‘What? No.’

Charlie stared at him, shaking with rage and clearly unconvinced. It was the first eye contact they’d made since Dennis left the bar, and Mac felt himself withering under it.

He still didn’t understand why Charlie was so angry at him in particular. He asked Dee, who snorted, and Frank who laughed, spitting globs of boiled egg into his face. He even headed down to ask one of Charlie’s friends under the bridge if he knew, but he just chuckled into the pool of vomit and crabs’ legs he was lying in. The one person he didn’t ask was Charlie. Not, of course, because he was a coward. He just didn’t want to. He simply watched his friend in mutinous silence as the days drew on, as the chosen rat got better at walking the length of the bar if there was cheese at the other end. He ferried kegs and tables over to Mrs Kelly’s house, watching the yard change in stages from brown and barren to brown with newly dug in plants and streamers hanging off the flaking, splintered fence. His mom even stopped flinging her butts out there, although nothing could be done about the scorch marks that dotted the lawn, and the whole set up still looked a bit post-apocalyptic. On Thursday afternoon he set down yet another keg and paused to stretch and work out what had changed since the morning. Only one thing, a painted fabric sign hanging across the back door.

MACDONALD KELLY WEDDING

The letters were black and stark, daubed in such a way that it looks liked a tarred pillowcase waiting for a witch, a handful of feathers, and an angry mob.

It couldn’t have been more appropriate for their families.   

Chuckling to himself, he sat down on the back step with his knees forced uncomfortably up to his chest. It reminded him of an evening once spent sitting out here, staring at the clear night sky and pretending not to be cold as he and Charlie alternated between weed and glue, one nursing a black eye and the other an upset stomach caused by eating too many yellowjackets.

‘ _Man,_ Adriano and Tim Murphy are cool.’ Charlie had wheezed.

‘They made you eat wasps, dude.’

‘They were so impressed when I did it though. One of them fist bumped me.’ Charlie said, proudly showing a small bruise on his upper arm.

‘No, he _punched_ you.’

‘Nah he just missed my hand by a little bit.’

Mac hadn’t really considered this possibility before. ‘Oh, do you think that’s what happened with my face?’

‘No, they actually did punch you. You were being a complete asshole, _Ronnie the Rat_.’

‘Hey, I was pretty clear. You go to another dealer, I can’t promise nothing bad will happen.’

Charlie laughed hoarsely at that.

‘Yeah that makes it sound like you’re gonna challenge them to a fight, not tell on them to the teacher.’

Mac fell silent at that, watching his friend watch the stars, hugging his arms around his chest for warmth until the weed was gone and nearly all the lights at the neighbouring buildings were out.

‘I’d better get back, before my mom starts to worry.’

‘Aw come on, she never does.’

‘Of _course_ she does. Cause she loves me. But she trusts me, so she doesn’t show it.’

Charlie nodded a little strangely at that, turning his head away.

‘I wish you just lived here. You should move in, I bet neither of our mom’s would mind.’

Mac laughed. ‘One day dude, we’ll have our own place. Just you and me.’

They’d talked about it for so long now. Just a few more years and it would surely be reality.

‘But until then why not just stay here? You’re basically family.’

That had made his chest tighten strangely at the time and it did so again at the memory. It stayed with him on the whole drive back to Paddy’s.

‘You know we’re gonna be actual brothers after Saturday, right?’ He said to an empty room as he opens the door.

‘This is Charlie we’re talking about. Of course he doesn’t know that.’ Dee said, popping her head around the office door. ‘He left a while back by the way. Walked off with the rat in his pocket.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘No but he said he’d see us on Saturday.’

Mac started to pace and run his hands through his hair, not even sure any more why he’s so agitated.

‘Look, Dee, I need your help. I know we don’t talk much but-‘

She laughed in his face and told him to piss off.

'See this? This is why we don’t like you.’ He shouted as he headed out of the door again.

Strangely it didn’t look like she cared much.

He tried Charlie’s apartment and his own, the bridge, even the waitress’s place. For the second time that night, he got laughed at and told to piss off.  

‘Ugh, women. So unreasonable.’ He muttered as he walked away from her mockery.

He went everywhere he could think of, even the sewers, but with no luck. He spent the night and next day drunk and vaguely miserable.

When he woke up on Saturday morning it was still dark outside, in the brief quiet between the last drunks going home and the first garbage men starting the rounds. He lay there feeling the blood pounding through his fingertips, sipping water and watching the sun rise through his thin curtains until he felt less like he was going to die, although no less hollow or inexplicably guilty. He had little time to dwell on it before it was time to head over to Mrs Kelly’s house.

The back yard was, he had to admit, looking quite lovely, particularly considering how little time or money had gone into it. Charlie had contributed his boombox, with a dirty white ribbon around the handle. The tables and chairs from the bar held the guests with room to spare, and had real, expensive looking flower arrangements on them which Frank must have bought or stolen. His mom looked ok in his suit standing at the priest’s side. Mrs Kelly, still a little way off, was wearing a giant, puffy cream dress with faint brown stains on that Mac suspected her son had scavenged from a landfill, but as the boombox began to play the wedding march and the Kellys approached down the aisle roughly marked out by the benches, he could see that she looked happy. Even his mother was almost not frowning.

Charlie handed his mother over, solemnly nodding at Mrs Mac. ‘Be good to my baby girl.’ He said, turning and brushing tears from his eyes. Did Charlie actually think she’d somehow legally become his daughter? That he was genuinely handing her over to someone else’s care like this is a real wedding? That this was about anything other than health insurance? It was objectively ridiculous, and not that long ago, Mac would have cringed and rolled his eyes at Charlie making a spectacle of himself. But he could see things differently now. He saw happiness and love, he saw a guy who nearly killed himself to get treatment money for his mom. He saw the one boy who didn’t laugh at him when his dad turned out to be a meth dealer. The guy who immortalised him in song form as a fucking super hero. The one person in the entire world who felt like home.

And, like yet another bolt out of the blue, he saw the person he loved.

‘Oh, _shit_.’ He said far too loudly at this worst-timed revelation. For a second or two he felt only sheer panic, until reality set in and smoothed it down into a dull ache. He could handle this. He handled living with Dennis for years, after all. Luckily, about a second later everyone’s attention was diverted back to Charlie, crouched on all fours at the start of the aisle.

‘ _Oh SHIT.’_ Charlie shouted, as the little sewer rat with the ring in his front teeth turned out to be a better grifter than his handler, bolting suddenly for a hole in the fence and presumably into rat-thief legend. As Charlie freaked out, Dee scrunched a stray bit of tin foil into a small doughnut shape and plonked it in the priest’s hand.

The ceremony itself went pretty well after that. No one objected, although Frank looked like he was considering it. Mrs Mac managed to say her vows almost audibly, and only paused the whole thing for one smoke break, flicking the butt into next door’s yard to the approval of her bride. Within half an hour it was done and the priest pronounced them married. As people started to bustle around to fetch food or drink, Mac stayed in his seat, watching Charlie pound a beer before the applause had even fully died down, laughing and clapping along with humour that didn’t reach his eyes.

Mac wasn’t quite sure if he should go over and talk to him or run away until he’d had time to force himself to feel nothing, but either way he knew should definitely move. Instead, he stayed in his seat occasionally looking over until he couldn’t see where Charlie had gone. A moment later a hand landed heavily on his shoulder.

‘Hey, I gotta talk to you.’ Charlie slurred into his face with breath that could probably kill a bear. He’d clearly been taking advantage of the open bar, and given that he’d paid for it himself Mac couldn’t exactly blame him.

‘Sure.’ He replied quietly, half carrying Charlie to the furthest, emptiest corner of the yard and setting him down. For a moment he worried that Charlie had somehow managed to clock him, that he’d brought him over to tell him to keep away, that he doesn’t want him to stay over or hang out any more. But Charlie said nothing, only stared at him balefully with red-rimmed, slightly unfocussed eyes, until Mac remembered that before the wedding, before his heart had decided to blast him in the ass like this, they were in a fight. Charlie was clearly waiting for him to say something staring, as he was, expectantly up at his face. Mac took a breath and rehearsed asking Charlie what was wrong, firmly telling him that if Dennis had upset him, that was a problem for _them_ to deal with.

‘I was thinking about you the whole way through that Korean zombie film.’ He blurted out instead, aware that this was so far past juvenile and petty that it would sound ridiculous to anyone else. Not to Charlie, though, who looked pleased and vicious and as if that’d been exactly what he wanted to hear. At least they were on the same level, even if it wasn’t a very mature one.

‘I came to look for you Thursday night.’ Mac went on.

‘I know, I was down in the sewers. But I submerged myself and breathed through a used straw when I heard you calling my name.’

Mac tried not to interrupt whatever this is by retching loudly.

‘Anyway, what did you wanna say to me that night? The movie thing?’

‘Oh, no. I just realised that day that we were about to become brothers, you know?’ Mac blurted out, eyes shifting to look at nothing in particular, suddenly uncomfortable.

‘Oh shit yeah, we _are_ brothers now aren’t we!’ Charlie said, with a small huff of surprised laughter. ‘You’re not gonna make me do a blood test to check are you?’

‘What? No- that’s- our blood hasn’t changed. We’re not suddenly biologically related.’ Mac said, beginning to flush bright red at that suggestion.

Charlie nodded seriously as if in understanding, although Mac was pretty sure it was a front.

‘And I guess it just got me thinking about when we were kids, and how close we were.’

Just like that, the burning anger was back.

‘Yeah, we _were_ close. When I was good enough. When I wasn’t a retard, or illiterate, or a moron, or all the other things you guys call me. Before _the golden god_ turned up.’ Charlie hissed, suddenly a lot more sober than he had been a minute earlier.

‘He’s your friend too.’ Mac half shouted.

‘That’s not how it’s felt for a few years now.’ Charlie shrieked back, not caring that the people around them were starting to look. ‘It used to be us, then it was the three of us and then everything just got so messed up. You treated me like a slave, you made me feel like the weirdest guy in the world, and I didn’t _deserve_ that, man.’

‘Well, it wasn’t just me. Dennis and Dee treated you like shit too!’ He shot back, immediately wishing he could ram his entire fist in his mouth to make himself stop talking.

‘Yeah, and when Dennis left you stopped being a jerk. Then he comes back for one day and… besides, I don’t give a _shit_ what they do, they’re not-‘

‘-they’re not what?’

‘They’re not _you_.’

Mac shrugged helplessly at that cryptic answer.

‘I always had you, and then I didn’t any more, but then _he_ left, and- and stuff was starting to get better again and I felt _not_ weird, _not_ like an idiot. I-‘

He stopped abruptly and began to pace a small square in front of Mac, looking as if he was thinking as hard as he possibly could.

‘You what, man?’

He stopped pacing and looked down at the ground. ‘I felt like I had you back.’ He said, voice a little higher and hands in pockets, kicking at a loose bit of soil with his scuffed shoe.

No matter what’s happened the last few years or days, there was no one alive who knew Charlie better than Mac. Which meant he knew exactly what that particular combination of tone and posture meant.

‘You were. _Are._ If you want.’ He replied, mouth suddenly dry and voice soft, heart thudding so hard he can literally hear the blood in his head.

And because no one knew Mac better than Charlie, _he_ knew exactly what _that_ meant.

After all, they’ve always just clicked.  

Charlie leaned in slightly. ‘It’s not like how I felt about the waitress. Not at all.’

Mac was sure that was a good thing but bit back the reply.

‘But it’s definitely something.’ He continued. ‘You make me feel…’

‘Happy?’

‘Jealous. Like you’re mine. Kind of like I want to beat the shit out of anyone who gets between us. But, yes, also happy.’

‘Well that’s messed up.’

Charlie laughed unexpectedly at that.

‘That’s not what you really think. Come on man, I _know_ you.’

Charlie was right.

He _should_ have found that weird, or _co-dependent_ or whatever bullshit term they’ve been called over the years but he didn’t. He wanted to be needed and coveted like that. He felt drunk on the idea of it. He _craves_ this, the two of them having fun and scheming against a world that never gave a crap about them. The two of them planning adventures and having each other’s backs when shit hits the fan. He wanted to be woken up by Charlie’s terrible singing every day and be the person to put a smile on his face. He also, not to put too fine a point on it, wanted to fuck the shit out of him.  

That brought Mac’s imagination crashing back to earth. ‘But we’re both dudes. I’ve never seen you… Do you even think you-‘

‘-I don’t know, man.’ Charlie answered quickly while looking, for some reason, at his hands, clenching and unclenching them as if they’re cramping. ‘I really don’t.’ He continued, sounding as if he’s a thousand miles away and looking over at where his mom was dancing with Uncle Jack. ‘I wanna try but- if not, would that be enough for you?’

‘I don’t know either. Maybe? I’d want it to be.’

‘Let’s get really drunk and find out.’ Charlie said enthusiastically, clearly out of whatever reverie he’d been in a moment before, with a predatory grin on his face that did nothing to help Mac’s heart rate.

‘Right now?’

He shrugged unconcernedly and picked up the nearest half empty glass of beer to start downing it.

‘We’re at our moms’ wedding.’ Mac forced himself to say, fighting almost every instinct to pick him up and literally run inside.

‘Oh, yeah.’ Charlie replied sulkily, as if he hadn’t been the one in tears with the emotion of it all not a few hours earlier.

‘Maybe we could start with a dance?’

They joined everyone else in front of the boombox for its seventh repeat of _Take my breath away_ and began to slow dance so closely that Mac could feel Charlie’s heart hammering away.

‘Have you smoked any crack today?’ He whispered in Charlie’s ear.

‘What? No, dude, of course not.’ He replied, pulling away slightly and looking offended.

‘Just wondering about this.’ Mac said, resting his hand gently over Charlie’s chest, feeling the warmth of his skin through the cheap, thin fabric of his shirt. His heart started beating away even faster and Mac allowed himself a smug smile. Charlie rolled his eyes, pulled him back in and resumed their slow turning, his hand in an unconscious, possessive grip on the back of Mac’s jacket. The spell was only broken by the McPoyle brothers slow dancing towards them in order to congratulate them for their brotherly love, and the resultant shoving match that saw the McPoyles leave the wedding entirely.

As the wedding wound down, Mac’s eyes fell on their moms, dancing slowly and out of step, awkwardly compensating for the fact that his own mom was still smoking and Mrs Kelly’s hair was stiff with flammable hairspray. He watched their ungainly dance and wondered. He wondered why they were still dancing together after the first obligatory one, what it meant that his mother was still not frowning at the woman in her arms. He wondered if Mrs Kelly was truly going to get better. He wondered if Charlie’s heart was beating out of his chest with lust or just nerves, if Charlie even knew himself.

At that thought he took a deep breath and turned his face upwards. He felt God’s eyes on him in the warm, red glow of the setting sun and found himself wondering yet again if he’d ever fully let go of the wasted years. The self-hatred. The guilt.

He must have tensed up, because the set of arms around his shoulders squeezed tighter and began to rub small circles on his back.

‘I’ve got you.’ Charlie whispered.

Because he did, and he always had. Perhaps he always would.

His pastor was always telling him he should live in the moment. Mac closed his eyes and hoped this one lasted forever.


End file.
